Leased Line Internet Connectivity

Why Purchase a Leased Line?

Delivering High Speeds

If you have a requirement for high speed you can’t get any faster or more consistent speed other
than via a leased line. Years ago these may have been purely for large businesses who could afford them, but today with prices
continuing to fall, and the reliance of an Internet feed in business, these are becoming an essential tool in modern business.

Future Proof

With our fibre leased lines we can provide a large bearer to provide you with faster speeds in the future.
For example, we may deliver a 100Mbps bearer, and cap your speeds to 20Mbps. This results in a cheaper monthly cost to you

initially, and should you wish to increase the speed in years to come we can

speed it up closer to the 100Mbps physical limit
of the fibre supplied.

No Usage Limits

Leased lines are supplied without any form of traffic restriction or usage limit. You can download at full
speed all day, every day, regardless of what that traffic be made up of.

Consistent Speeds 24/7/365

Our leased lines are supplied without contention restrictions. We don’t oversubscribe our network
and therefore the bandwidth you purchase is used solely by your organisation. You can now avoid peak time exchange congestion,
or one-off events (eg Olympics) from affecting the speeds you achieve.

Service Level Agreement

Service level agreements are in place to ensure that regardless of the fault, or time of day, you will have members of staff
from both ICUK and our carriers working on the issue. Time limits are clearly stated, and in the event an unsatisfactory
resolution is put in place service credits are applied to your account. These should provide you with the peace of mind
that you will get the best from us when you need us the most.

Proactive Monitoring

As standard we proactively monitor your connections. Alerts are sent to Lucid Systems staff via SMS, which can
be reciprocated to your staff too.

Leased lines can be delivered through a range of technologies, each offering different monthly costs, different speeds
and different service level agreements to suit different businesses. To find the best fit for you, look through
our guide and assess the functionality against your needs.

Fibre

Fibre can provide your business with a dedicated connection to the Internet and deliver the ultimate in broadband
connectivity. They are not shared or contended with on the ISP network ensuring you get consistently fast broadband connection
all day, every day. As well as offering 1:1 contention the speeds are symmetrical, so unlike with ADSL or FTTx the upstream
and download speeds are the same. This can open up options to use your connections for more applications.

Ethernet First Mile (EFM)

EFM technology is perfect for any business that is looking for cost effective, high bandwidth connectivity to the Internet.
It sits between ADSL (which can be limiting depending on your location) and a full leased line (which can be prohibitively
expensive to small business). It makes use of multiple bonded copper pairs (up to a maximum of 8) providing speeds of
up to 35Mbps. These speeds are symmetrical ensuring you have the same up and downstream speeds, making it perfect for
VoIP calls or when handling large amounts of data. The multiple bonded pairs also offer resilience, in as much as should
one or multiple pairs develop a fault, the connectionstill operates albeit at a slower speed.

Generic Ethernet Access (GEA)

GEA uses FTTC and FTTP technologies to provide a non-contended path to the Internet. By 2014
about two thirds of the UK will be able to receive this technology. It’s comparatively low cost to install, speedy delivery
times, and higher headline speeds compared to EFM make it a compelling option to consider if it’s available in your area.
Unlike fibre leased lines or EFM, it doesn’t benefit from symmetrical speeds for uploads and downloads. It comes in three
variations with the ultimate speed being determined by the quality and length of your line in much the same way you would
expect from traditional ADSL or FTTC. Where it differs itself is in the consistency of speed as it isn’t subjec